Inside The Bills

Even though pass protection in the spring practices and the beginning of Friday’s practice was a problem when it came to blocking up Mike Pettine’s ever changing defensive looks, Kevin Kolb felt by the end of practice Friday the offensive unit was getting a better handle on blocking everything up.

“We needed a lot less communication today when they start bringing all the little guys and Pettine starts giving all those different looks, which was nice,” Kolb said. “Guys knew what we were doing with the ‘mike’ (LB) and how we were handling the blitz and part of that came with (offensive coordinator) Nate (Hackett) changing some things up as well on offense.”

Kolb also mentioned the fact similar to the way Friday’s practice went, wild success on offense might not be the way Buffalo starts games. The cumulative effect of high tempo and several plays however, will wear down opponents. That was the case when Hackett ran the offense at Syracuse where the Orange were one of the top second half offenses in the nation.

“I think that guys need to realize that may be our style of offense,” he said. “When you go back and look at Syracuse and watch them the last two or three years, their second half was twice as much yardage and scoring as the first half. That may be how this thing goes.

“We want to start fast and we want to get that first, first down and get a flow going, but we want to wear people down with that tempo and our aggression so there are probably a few games and a few scenarios where those things might happen.

“We know we’re wearing them down and see them getting tired and we can feel that as an offense. When those guys start huffing and puffing and they’ve got to chase the ball. We feel that and start picking it up and that’s when the runs start really busting and that’s what opens the offense up.”

The Orange ranked 13th in the country in second-half scoring in 2012. They averaged 17.7 points per game over the final two quarters.